


the life and times

by l_cloudy



Series: Strays [2]
Category: Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Multi, Pre-OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 05:09:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6142492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/l_cloudy/pseuds/l_cloudy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adolin would like his brother’s new charity case much better if he'd stop hitting on his girlfriend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the life and times

Shallan Davar was out of his league, Adolin was well aware of that – as were his brother and father and, because life wasn’t fair, so was _Shallan’s father_ , who liked to point out how much better than him his daughter was every time they happened to meet. Which was almost never, for some odd reason.

Cousin Jasnah even spelled it out, helpful as always. She’d met Shallan when she’d been offering a summer job at whoever could help her organize her library and her filing cabinet and sort out all the notes for her second doctoral thesis, since Jasnah herself couldn’t be bothered to – and the rest, as they say, was history.

Shallan had organized and filed and even spellchecked everything and, because she was Shallan, she’d even somehow managed to understand whatever mystical crap Jasnah was studying well enough to actually have a discussion about it.

Two weeks into the summer break Jasnah had taken Adolin out to further encourage his underage drinking and let him know, in no uncertain terms, that he should be beyond ecstatic at having somehow tricked a girl like Shallan into going on multiple dates with him – “And you should really make it official, Adolin dear, before that marvelous girl comes back to her senses.”

And, well. Cousin Jasnah _was_ the smartest person he knew. Only a fool would refuse her advice.

The day Shallan actually agreed to be his girlfriend, Adolin had to refrain from pinching himself at least a few times to make sure he’d heard her right; instead, he merely looked down at her, mouth opening and closing in a way Shallan later said very much resembled a goldfish.

“Are you _sure_?” he’d asked, which alone should have been ground for immediate dumping – but Shallan, bless her soul, had just laughed.

“I mean,” she’d said. “It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.”

And that had been that. They had become the disgustingly cute couple that made everyone else nauseous just by looking at them, as Adolin had been dutifully informed at least twice by each and every one of his acquaintances. He’d suffered through Shallan’s ill-timed jokes and impromptu phone rants at four in the morning, and she’d put up with his occasional wandering eye and pretended like she actually liked Jakamav, a monumental feat all by itself. Adolin himself could only stomach Jakamav after several drinks.

Then Kaladin came along and ruined everything.

The thing was, Adolin _did_ feel sorry for Kaladin. There was no denying the other boy’d had a rough life –his brother had been shot by a cop at age thirteen, and he didn’t even want to imagine how he would’ve felt if that had happened to Renarin. And then there was that bad business with Kaladin’s family’s practice, and an endless string of bad luck worthy of a Lemony Snicket novel.

So, yeah. He was sorry, and he was sympathetic, and he had a ton of goodwill and positive vibes he would gladly send Kaladin’s way – as soon as the sullen idiot would finally stop flirting with his girlfriend. And making his girlfriend laugh.

Actually, maybe Kaladin should just stop talking to Shallan, period.

The moment he walked into the room – any room, be it at school, or at Sunday lunch, or even in Adolin’s own bedroom that one time Kaladin had _just happened_ to walk down the corridor – the exact moment he walked into a room Shallan would drop whatever she was doing and flock to Kaladin’s side.

The fact that half of the times it was only so that she could insult him didn’t help. Everyone knew that fighting was pretty much the same thing as foreplay, and Adolin would’ve gladly preferred that his girlfriend abstained from picking fights with a decorated school athlete who _also_ happened to be in all of her A.P. classes and liked to _read classical novels_ in his spare time.

(To be honest, Adolin had hoped that last bit would turn her off. The only kind of art Shallan was interested in was her drawings, she despised fiction on sheer principle and had gotten a B+ on a literature midterm once because she couldn’t be bothered actually finishing _The Great Gatsby_. And yet, when it came to Kaladin, she thought it was endearing.

“Sensibility is good on a man, Adolin,” she’d said, whatever the hell _that_ was supposed to mean.)

For this reason – and many, many others; possibly including the daddy issues he would never admit to having – Adolin didn’t share the general enthusiasm everyone and their grandmother seemed to harbor for hardworking, quiet-but-oh-so-smart Kaladin.

In fact, it wasn’t long before he started to perk up whenever Kaladin walked into the room – at school, at Sunday lunch or down the corridor by his bedroom – and drop whatever he was doing to go pick a fight with the other boy.

It wasn’t until six months later when Jasnah took him out for drinks again, and very helpfully informed him of the difference between fighting and flirting she thought he ought to have learned in fifth grade, that Adolin figured out what exactly was going on with him.

As annoying as it was, having a genius for a cousin really did come in handy at times.

(He never officially did ask Kaladin to be his boyfriend. Neither did Shallan. It just sorta happened from there.)


End file.
